TZ, civil servants threaten demonstration

Civil servants have threatened to down tools tomorrow in protest over Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec)’s decision to force 2017 Ordinary Level pupils to resit the English Paper 2 examinations this Friday.

“The demonstration will take place in Harare on Wednesday where we will march and deliver a petition to the minister (Primary and Secondary Education minister Paul Mavhima) at their offices. We are saying the rewriting of the examination is illegal, unacceptable, unfortunate and will never be allowed to happen,’’ he said.

Mavhima last week announced government’s decision to have the paper 2 rewritten this Friday after the results were nullified after it was discovered by authorities that widespread cheating took place.

The decision led to a public outcry that forced the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights to take government and the national examination body to court. The matter was heard yesterday.
“The government must look at the cause of the problem and the culprits must be punished,” he said.

Majongwe said they made noise when issues of leakages came up, but nothing was done.

“The integrity that the Zimsec group and the ministry is trying to protect will never be protected as long as these issues are not addressed. There are some who are visually-impaired and those who do not have access to phone, who are now being punished with everyone because of a small leakage that has happened at Zimsec,” he said.

Meanwhile, Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume said his party would also join tomorrow’s demonstration. The protest come as some parents have taken Zimsec to court seeking nullification of the decision.

12 Comments

Anyone who knows what the court said? Concerning this ZIMSEC issue, i just want to say its wrong to punish students who were caught with the paper. Find out one who gave them the paper possibly for a fee is our culprit here. One reader commented in the standard that if anything the students are resourceful.
Let me give this scenario, a hunter goes out to hunt and unbe known to the hunter, a wild parks personnel opens the gate leading to antelopes going out of the fence. On seeing the antelope, what is the hunter supposed to do? If you were the hunter what would you do? I for one would definitely kill the antelope. Now the question is, am i guilty of killing an animal wondering in no man’s land??????????

Resourceful my foot. Exams are for bringing out what one has learned. The questions are supposed to test one’s knowledge theirfore the students are supposed to enter the exam room without knowing what exactly they will be facing and show their knowledge at whatever they are thrown. They should have reported the leak.

They are not resourceful they are lazy and stupid a resourcesful student would not have been a coward to copy any exam he would have been a whistleblower and prevented this situattion we are in now, they are guilty as charged.

This just proves some personnel not up to task at the institution and maybe the responsible ministries as well. They are trying to solve the resultant problem not the root cause. HOW are the leaks happening in the first place & who is responsible? Surely when you call on the whole nation to re sit an exam the nation would also expect at least one figure head resigning but alas they are all busy queeing for the re-sitting allowances!

I wrote my O Levels in 1970. In those days we learned that many of us failed certain subjects for the sole reason that the British examiners were found to be purposely failing Rhodesian students ! Now that wasn’t fair but our papers were never remarked.

Don’t blame Mavhima,blame Dokora,the new minister is just trying to bring sanity into the system.Will you be happy if your kid come out with A”s yet you know he or she benefited from cheating.We the parents are to blame,your kids made you aware of this cheating and kept your lips tight because you wanted your siblings to benefit.If you do not want your kid to rewrite keep him or her at home instead of disturbing the flow of business.

The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, which is a Chapter 12 Independent Commission with the mandate to foster national healing in Zimbabwe, needs to have it’s 10-year mandate reinstated if it is to fulfil its Constitutional mandate. ...